““...we make it our aim to please him.””
““We make it our aim….” It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.””
Every Tuesday morning we get together for prayer at our church. It's a small group of us at 6 am. We drink coffee and talk for half the time, spend a bunch of time going over areas of prayer, and end up by praying for less time than we should since our hour is usually almost up. We also attempt to incorporate a devotional in there, and recently they've come from the timeless devotional, "My Utmost for His Highest". This morning's was particularly poignant for those of us who have planted a church.
hat is the primary goal of the Christian? Is to to evangelize, proselytize, free the oppressed, feed the hungry, etc? Is it planting churches or holding revivals? Or is it to be pleasing to God?
We American's are quick to point to our accomplishments for God as the chief indicator of our spiritual prowess, but this is not the heart of the good news of Jesus. If it were possible for us to do any good for God, perhaps a savior would not have been necessary. The good news is that even when we find that we can't do any good, even when we find that our good deeds are really just like filthy rags to God, he loves us anyway and gives us perfection because of Jesus. If we are pleasing to God, it is not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. This was the heart of the Angel's message to the Shepherds: on earth, peace to those on whom he is well pleased. God's pleasure towards us has little to do with us, it has everything to do with Jesus.
Living in that reality–indeed, aiming at it–is the chief goal of the Christian. I must aim to find God's pleasure in Jesus Christ. I must learn to live in the reality of that pleasure, to discover what that pleasure really looks like and really means. And then, from that pleasure, will flow a great love for others beyond what I even knew I could have.
When we disrupt the order and get it backwards, that is, when we focus on our efforts as a means to please God, we not only bring ourselves back under condemnation (by essentially asking God to judge us based on our own merit rather than Christ's) but I also think that we begin to alienate those whom we would aim to reach. I can't help but think that our obsessive focus on evangelism, at the expense of being who God would truly have us be because of his pleasure towards us in Christ, has alienated as many as it has drawn near. I can't help but think we have confused a great number of people who think that it is their own efforts–their concern for social justice, their concern for the poor, or the marginalized–that will bring God's pleasure. Why should they not be confused? When we reverse the order, this is our implicit (and sometimes explicit) message: yes, Jesus is good, but to really have God's pleasure, we must _______________.
This is nothing new. The first century church dealt with their own version of it. Instead of good works, it was religious ceremony or dedication that earned God's pleasure. Paul called those who would fall into that deception "fools", and passionately declared that anyone who would teach that should go so far as to castrate themselves.
We take aim to be pleasing to God. The way we take aim is to focus on the goodness of Jesus, through whom we have the pleasure of God in full. Focus on that, and the rest begins to follow.